Marsha had replaced her usual well-tailored suits with jeans and a long-sleeved blouse. Her white hair was more casual, soft waves rather than a bun. She linked arms with Charity.
“Instead of dancing around the topic, I thought we’d face it head-on,” she said, leading the way to the stairs. “Let’s go look at Sandra’s room. I’m hoping you can get a sense of what her life was like before you were born.”
“I’d like that,” Charity told her.
They climbed the wide staircase and turned left at the landing.
“The last door on the right,” Marsha said, releasing Charity. “Nothing has been changed, I’m afraid. Despite my best intentions, I turned my daughter’s room into a shrine. I’m sure any number of psychologists would have plenty to say about that.”
Her tone was easy, but Charity saw the flash of pain in her eyes.
Not knowing what to say, she walked toward the open door. When she reached it, she turned and looked at the bedroom that had belonged to her mother.
The whole room had been done in shades of lavender, her mother’s favorite color. A full-sized bed was covered in a purple and lavender quilt. Built-in bookcases flanked the bed. The shelves were crowded with books, knick-knacks and pictures. There were posters on the wall. A very young Michael Jackson and a group Charity wouldn’t have known except for the word “Blondie” in script at the bottom.
She stepped inside the bedroom and walked to the desk. School books were still stacked. A half-written essay on Julius Caesar was next to them. A gold flower necklace on a thin chain lay carelessly across the paper.
She moved to the shelves and studied the pictures. Sandra was in nearly all of them. Her mother with her friends, at a school dance. The familiar smile made her chest ache, but other than that, she felt no connection with the room or the former occupant.
“All she took were some clothes and money,” Marsha said from the doorway. “Nothing else. There wasn’t a note. She never said goodbye.”
“I’m sorry,” Charity said, not sure how to ease Marsha’s pain. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think her constant moving on was about you. She loved new places. We’d settle somewhere for a few months and then she’d start talking about the next place and the next. Where we were going was always more exciting than where we were.”
Charity looked around at the room. The pretty curtains, the small collection of worn stuffed animals shoved carelessly in a corner. Something like this was exactly what she’d dreamed about when she’d been younger. A place to call her own. Nothing fancy—just a regular kind of home. Yet her mother had walked away from it and had never looked back.
“I wish she’d told me about you,” she said.
“Me, too.” Marsha’s eyes were sad again. “I wish I’d been more understanding of who she was. She desperately wanted to go away to college, but I always said she had to stay here. I was such a fool. Controlling and unyielding. I had to be right. In the end, being right cost me my only child. If I’d—”
“No,” Charity said, cutting her off. “She would have left anyway. It’s what she wanted. I don’t think there’s anything you could have done to change her.”
“You can’t be sure about that.”
“Yes, I can,” Charity said, trying not to sound bitter. “I knew her.”
“Perhaps,” Marsha said. “I still have that album for you. It’s downstairs.”
Charity nodded and followed her back to the living room. Together they looked through pictures of Sandra. There were laughing photos of a toddler, then more familiar poses and smiles as she got older.
Marsha gazed lovingly at each photo. She told stories about when they were taken and what happened next. Charity shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.
“Is this why you hired me?” she asked abruptly. “Because I’m your granddaughter?”
Marsha smiled at her. “While I did want the chance to get to know you, I have devoted most of my life to this town. I wouldn’t have risked the future of so many just to have you around. When we hired the recruiter to fill your job, I gave her your name. I said I’d heard good things about you, but that was all. She wouldn’t have put you on the slate if you hadn’t been an excellent candidate.”
That made Charity feel better. “Will people be upset when they find out? Won’t they think you tricked the city council into hiring me?”
“You’ve been in meetings. You know how stubborn everyone can be. Do you really think I could have convinced them to hire an unqualified candidate?”
“No,” she admitted. “They would rebel.”